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Peterborough digital startup Canuck Play releases first video game -- Canadian Football 2017

From left, vice-president Sheryl Loucks, president David Winter of Canuck Play, president and CEO Michael Skinner of the Innovation Cluster and CEO Andrew Warman of Retro's Arcade and eSports Bar talk to reporters during the launch of the first Canadian Football Game released on XBox One and PC Desktop on Tuesday July 25, 2017 at Retro�s eSports Bar on Simcoe St. in Peterborough, Ont. CLIFFORD SKARSTEDT/PETERBOROUGH EXAMINER/POSTMEDIA NETWORK

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The first Canadian football sports game to be released on Microsoft's Xbox One and personal computers - the first title made by a city-based digital technology startup - hit the market Wednesday after about two years of development.

Canadian Football 2017 by Canuck Play, a client of the Innovation Cluster Peterborough and The Kawarthas' downtown Cube since March 2016, was revealed at an afternoon launch held at Retro's eSports Bar on Simcoe St.

The first Canadian football game for a major console - complete with three downs per possession and 12-player teams - represents about 6,350 hours of development time, Canuck Play founder and president David Winter told those gathered.

Canadian Football 2017, while not licensed to use the names of actual teams and players, includes all nine cities with professional football.

It aims to provide the most authentic experience possible, Winter said. "That has been the focus for us, to bring the Canadian football experience to a video game."

Each venue is visually unique. Subtleties, for example, include how Montreal's stadium has rounded end zones because the venue also hosts racing. The movement of players in the game were created by by using motion capture suits.

Canuck Play has lofty goals for the game, such as being able to add a pro licence, but first aims to shape a following.

"This is our starting point. This is what we're going to build upon," Winter said.

The company, which celebrates Canadian culture, sports and heroes, chose a beaver logo because the animal is admired for its ingenuity, Canuck Play vice-president Sheryl Loucks said, explaining how the proposal for the game was actually sent to Microsoft on a whim.

The approval about 18 months ago was sweetened by the fact that only five per cent of Canadian submissions are okayed, she added. "It's been a bit of a road and we're proud to be here."

Loucks expressed the company's gratitude for community's support for the project. Radio personality Jordan Mercier of Extra 90.5 FM provided his voice as the in-game announcer, while realtor and former city councillor Bill Juby volunteered his talents as referee.

Life-long football fan Mercier said his voice over, his first, opened his eyes about just how much work goes into the voices for such titles.

Groups like the Peterborough Wolverines were also consulted, Loucks added. "This is an authentic an experience as one can possible make it."

Winter brings more than 20 years of experience of working with both international and smaller studios to the project. His production and design credits include titles such as Electronic Arts' Madden, NHL and FIFA series, as well as Batman, Harry Potter and The Sims.

Under the publishing name Wintervalley Software, those behind Canuck Play developed and released the first video game officially licensed by the Canadian Football League (CFL) and CFL Players Association, CFL Football '99.

Winter said mobile titles can take as little as six months to develop while console games can take as many as four years. It generally takes about two years to build the first sports title in a franchise, because of their complexity, he added.

There are more expectations when it comes to sports games, he said. Making them as lifelike as possible is one of the biggest challenges, because players are fans that watch the game regularly. "If something doesn't look right, you can get called out on it."

Retro's co-owner Andrew Warman agreed, joking about out how even a Tetris painting recently placed on the bar's patio drew some criticism. "In order for a game to be amazing, it has to have a great meta game ... they've done an amazing job."

Cluster president and CEO Michael Skinner noted that the video game production industry spends more than $265 million in Ontario while contributing more than $3 billion to Canada's gross domestic product each year.

He pointed out how helpful Winter was to other clients that surround him at the business incubator in the VentureNorth building, particularly when it came to computer programming. "That ecosystem really proves The Cube is working."

Canadian Football 2017 is available for PC distribution via Steam or by clicking Buy Now at www.canuckplay.com for $15.99 USD ($21 Canadian).

NOTES: Canuck Play was a finalist of Bears' Lair 2016.... Agreements are in place with Sony to develop the title for the Playstation 4.... A launch party that included a live tournament was held Tuesday night at Retro's eSports Bar.

You can finally play a Canadian football video game — just without any CFL teams

GERRY MODDEJONGE

POSTMEDIA NETWORK

EDMONTON — Fans of the Canadian Football League finally have the video game they've always wanted.

Kind of...

Oh, it's all there. From three downs and 110 yards to the waggle and, yes, even the ability to pull off a kick-it-in/kick-it-out of the end zone should the scenario arise.

Nine teams from stadiums in their proper Canadian cities, with players represented by three-dimensional graphics created through motion-capture technology. What more could joystick jockeys looking to get their fix of the Canadian gridiron game want?

Well, besides the actual teams and players, that is.

Canadian Football '17 dropped Wednesday morning on Xbox Live and Steam, putting the three-down circuit into the hands of fans on a major console for the first time. For indie publisher David Winter, president of Canuck Play, based out of Peterborough, it's his first time releasing a Canadian football game since CFL Football '99 for PC.

“Consoles, up until very recently, were extraordinarily expensive to create games for,” Winter said. “You needed a big publisher, you had to be spending millions of dollars. It was really outside the realm of possibility to do a console title. But Canuck Play solved that by getting a publishing deal with Microsoft, so that put us on the Xbox One. Here we are now, publishing the very first Canadian football game on a major console, and we're also launching a PC desktop port of that game.”

The move couldn't come soon enough, as attendance is down in many markets as it becomes more and more difficult to capture the attention of younger audiences with the world at their fingertips.

“I'm a firm believer that one of the reasons that the National Football League has become so popular is because kids can jump onto Madden at any point in time to run around as Tom Brady and be Tom Brady,” Winter said. “And then they're watching Tom Brady on the television, so that name is constantly engraved in their skull. I know people that don't actually watch the NFL, but they know the NFL purely from football video games.

“So if you're trying to grow your brand and you're trying to grow the sport in general, not everybody has the physical gifts to actually be out on the field playing,” said Winter, who played football growing up and whose sister was a cheerleader for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the 1980s. “For me, personally, this is how I stay involved in the sport. I'm 5-8, 150, and my zero-to-60 is about three days.”

Only the CFL has not got behind the project. So, instead of the Edmonton Eskimos playing at Commonwealth Stadium, for instance, Canadian Football '17 features a team in green and gold called the Edmonton Rhinos who play in a kind of familiar setting.

“Canadian Football '17 is not licensed — there's no league licence, there's no Players Association licence. The Players Association never even returned our call,” said Winter, who approached the CFL with a budget of $500,000 in private funding, matched by an equal amount of government grants and tax incentives. “Our development budget with a licence was about a million dollars.”

It's a fraction of that without the licence.

The CFL did not respond to interview requests on the topic of video games.

Winter said he was told the league was looking for a developer who would pay for both development and marketing, as well as a royalty to the CFL on top.

“The math doesn't work,” he said. “They're asking a developer to spend more money on the game than they could ever possibly recoup. They're looking for somebody to just gift them a game. They don't want to invest anything into it.”

While there is no built-in player or team editor on the Xbox version, the rosters on PC are open-source. Anyone with a little know-how can open the various files in Notepad and change all the logos, uniforms and player and team names, if they want to do so.

“I don't want to hear about it, but you can do what you want to do,” Winter said. “The console is a little more restrictive. For 2018, we're going to try and address those things.”

They'll also address online play, which isn't available in this inaugural edition of the game, said Winter, who spent five years as EA Sports' online producer providing the online features sets to all the different sports titles, including EA Sports Hockey League.

Canadian Football '17 retails for US$15.99 US, or around CDN$21, and is rated E for everyone.

***

Odell Willis is the guru of the virtual gridiron when it comes to the real-world Canadian Football League. And anyone who would like to dispute his title better be prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

The Edmonton Eskimos' defensive end makes no secret of his love for the wildly popular Madden NFL football series. He routinely takes on all comers in online competition, including fellow CFL players from across the league.

But one thing has always bothered him.

“Why do you have to play Madden? Why can't you play Canadian football? It's all the same thing,” Willis said. “I mean, they've even made other crazier football games besides that. Why not give us a chance?”

It's almost impossible to compare the Canadian market to the economic juggernaut down south, and costs have always been prohibitive in the development process alone. But with today's technology, online markets and countless indie video game art houses, it's only a matter of time.

Canadian Football '17 dropped Wednesday morning on Xbox Live and Steam, showcasing the three-down circuit, but because it doesn't have the backing of the league, team names, stadiums and players are different.

“I think about a lot of stuff. It's out of my control, but I wish the league would at least look into it,” Willis said. “But they're doing what they can to help promote us, I guess, and I feel like they're happy where we're at. I'm pretty sure they have plans to do other things, but at the same time, you can only just wait to see what they do.

“You can only take that idea to them and from there, it's up to them what they want to do with it, how they want to spend the money. At the end of the day, all of it is about money and who can make a buck off what.”

Willis has been playing Madden “since I was old enough to play it,” he said. “My older brother had all the video games. I always just played against my friends and stuff.”

Now, the eight-year CFL veteran finds himself part of an inner circle of pro football players across the country who get involved in online competition from time to time.

“We do, but I typically stick to myself,” Willis said. “When I play guys, I either want to bet for money or something. I don't want to play just for fun, just so you can be talking. I don't want to do what the other guys do, I want it to actually mean something. So if I play you and you lose a couple hundred dollars to me, then we're going to see how you take it compared to you beating me and just constantly nagging me about it all day. Nag me and then lose $200, then we'll talk.”

“I feel like my rank speaks for itself,” said Willis, 32. “So I don't need too much arguing with guys about that, because if you want to, let's just put money on it and call it a day. I'm not going to sit here and argue like a big kid about me being better than you and sitting there talking trash. Let's put money on it and see who wins.”

Against thousands upon thousands who compete online, Willis consistently rises to the upper echelon of the online leaderboards with each annual release of Madden titles.

“I always break 100 every year,” he said. “And once I break it, I just stop playing until the next one comes out. I have proof of mine, so I don't worry too much about people talking about video games. I'm an older guy now, so I don't do all the talking anymore.”

For Willis, a CFL video game would be the tip of the iceberg.

“I just never know why it hasn't ever happened,” Willis said. “I mean, a lot of stuff in this league, I wonder why we don't have the same things as the NFL when we've been around way longer than the NFL. I remember reading some of the history where I saw Rocket (Raghib) Ismail signed a four-year, $18-million deal, so why can't we get the same endorsement deals as the NFL?

"Some things are out of my hands. I just play the game and enjoy it, and hopefully in the next 20 years or so, the league will just evolve.”